


Sound of Silence

by TheTwistedWillow



Series: Destiel Weekend Writing Challenges [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angel Castiel (Supernatural), Angel Wings, Castiel is Missing, Dean is So Done, Explicit Language, First Kiss, M/M, Statue Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 01:58:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12378519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTwistedWillow/pseuds/TheTwistedWillow
Summary: Dean is scouring the country to find Cas after Cas has an encounter with Medusa in which she turns him to stone and gifts him to a random church.Story is inspired by this artwork: https://noxsoulmate.tumblr.com/post/166370534792/sassycaslovesdean-holy-destiel-so-thats-whatI was also inspired by the song 'Sound of Silence' (the cover from Disturbed), one of my all-time favorite songs. The lyrics do not have anything to do with the story.Every weekend Destiel NaNoWriMo on FB hosts 'Destiel Writing Weekend' and gives different prompt choices to authors. This weekend's theme is 'Guardian Angels'.





	Sound of Silence

On a dark, cold evening Dean slips into the old cathedral down on Mission Road. The foyer is alight with dim wall sconces and a few battery-operated candles littered around the various tables. Dean isn’t a religious man. Never been one for praying nor for hymnals nor crossing himself and rubbing his fingers over beads to talk to dead guys.  
  
That isn’t why he is here.  
  
Dean’s wet boots squidge across the old oak floors, echoing in the open space. Beads of water roll off the nylon backpack strapped to his back and make quiet splat-splat-splat noises. Otherwise it is eerily quiet, wall shadows dancing in the fake candlelight. He shudders, both from being wet and cold and because the church is fucking creepy as hell.  
  
He steps through the double doors that lead into the sanctuary. His eyes are drawn to the large cross behind the altar, his thoughts instantly turning to Chuck. His lip twitches in a sneer. He wouldn’t be in this predicament if Chuck would ever step in when Dean asked.

But He had made it clear he wasn’t at humanity’s beck-and-call. He’s probably off somewhere blogging his stupid fucking cat videos and drinking booze outta a coconut, while guys like Dean and Sam try to clean up His children’s messes.  
  
Damn, Dean is done playing babysitter to the world.  
  
Especially now. Especially since, a few months ago, Cas went missing. Everything in Dean zeroed in on finding him, finding out what happened. Thank God --actually, thank anything else-- that Sam is a walking encyclopedia of weird, gifted with a knack for piecing clues together.  
  
After chasing several dead-end leads they finally got a hit and found out that Cas had been cornered by Medusa and turned to stone. As some sick, twisted punishment, or perverse pleasure of her own, she donated him to a church. The catch? They have no fucking clue which church.  
  
Dean’s eyes leave the cross and take in the stained-glass stories in the cathedral windows, starting with Adam and Eve. He tries to not snort derisively at the inaccuracies, wanting to shake mankind and tell them they idolize assholes.  
  
He has lost count of how many churches he has searched for the man-sized statue of a trenchcoated angel. Out of countless churches around the country, and around the world, Sam was able to downsize the possibilities to several thousands. Scratch that: several hundreds of thousands.  
  
After a quick turnabout in the spacious room, Dean seeks out the minister to question him. There is no statue of the Angel of Thursday on the premises. No, the statue they had recently had shipped in was of Michael. If Dean wasn’t itching to get to the next church he might’ve come back and blown it up… just ‘cause.  
  
Dean pulls his black trenchcoat around himself, a likeness to the tan one that Cas wears, and heads down to the billionth church in the state. He’d be lying if he didn’t say he was starting to wear thin, mentally and emotionally. But he doesn’t know that he can stop. Not with knowing Cas is out there…  
  
Sam is helping search, the brothers having decided to split up, even asking hunters in other towns to keep their eyes peeled. It’s only a matter of time before Sam tries to pull the plug on the operation, leaving Dean to scour the country alone. But for now he's doing what he can to help.    
  
Dean steps outside and into the quiet, walking briskly down cobblestone in the oldest part of town. It begins to sprinkle again and he turns his collar up to the damp, streetlights flicking on as dusk settles around him. His stomach is starting growl but he’s got two more churches on this stretch of road so he may as well take quick looks and get them crossed off his endless list.  
  
Part of him wants to skip them. They’re innocuous and tiny. But he cannot leave a single stone unturned, even if that stone is the size of a grain of sand. The first of the two appears abandoned, with broken windows and rotting soffits.

Dean looks around for anyone who could witness him busting down the door but it’s like a ghost town. He lifts a boot and kicks the door hard, his bag swinging erratically on his back.  
  
It takes three more kicks before it splinters  around the lock, the door swinging open noisily. Dean takes out a pocket flashlight from his trenchcoat pocket, clicking it on and pointing it ahead. Squatters have left a mess of graffiti and, bottles, a stained and lumpy mattress.  
  
Dean continues on to the belly of the church, where a sagging floor and misplaced pews clutter the room. All the other decor looks like it has been pilfered. After a search of all the rooms, the basement and the attic, Dean comes up empty.  
  
When he steps outside the golden, rainy evening dusk has become a somber blackness punctuated by the occasional light from a store or street light and, now, the glare of Dean’s cell phone.  
  
A text update from Sam shows ‘no joy’. Dean returns the same sentiment.  
  
The last church is a squat, brick building and less imposing than the cathedral he hit up over an hour ago. That may be in due part to the fact that a midweek, evening service is apparently going to be happening very shortly. Dean hunches his shoulders and squeezes past socializing congregants who apparently don’t have sense enough to clear doorways when stopping to gossip.  
  
Dean rolls his eyes and sighs deeply once he’s breached the worst of the crowd and comes to stand in a modern, brightly lit sanctuary. The altar --or stage or whatever-- is set up more for a rock concert than for sacred religious ceremony. A few young hipster types practice strumming guitars, waiting for the service to begin.  
  
There is no stained glass and the cross above the stage is draped with a pretty crimson sash. Dean looks over to his left to see a couple of guys in a booth with headphones on, messing with a soundboard.  
  
“Hi there!” Dean hears someone say. He looks over and sees a woman waving her hand up and down, making her way toward him. Dean looks to either side of himself to be sure she’s actually heading to him, but her wide smile and, “Yoo hoo, new guy,” confirms she’s honed in on him.  
  
“Uh, hi,” he says, shaking her ice-cold, manicured hand.  
  
“Welcome to Faith Assembly. I’m Maria and we are just so excited to have you here.” The entire time she is talking she is squeezing and shaking Dean’s hand to punctuate every other word. She finally lets him go.  
  
“Thanks. I’m just gonna, ya know, hang out back here. Observe with my eyes, and all that.” He puts his hands in his pockets to discourage anymore hand-touching but it occurs to him she may be aware of new statues. “Maria? I gotta ask, do you guys have any angel statues here?”  
  
“Well, we do have one. It’s downstairs in the reception hall.” She leans in to whisper conspiratorially. “To be honest it’s kinda weird. The pastor said there was some mix-up in the shipment because the monument he ordered was supposed to be the Virgin Mary.”  
  
Heart skipping, Dean asks, “Does it have a coat like mine? A tie?”  
  
Maria frowns. “I don’t remember. I don’t think so. I thought it was wearing typical Roman or Greek garbs. I always get the two mixed up,” she laughs.  
  
Okay so not Cas’ clothes, but still, Dean is determined to check it out. Cas could’ve met with the goddess in her ethnic-traditional clothes, or she could’ve dressed him up any way she wanted.

Dean thanks Maria, and silently thanks gossipmongers in general, heading in the direction of the stairs.  
  
“Can I help you?” A short, paunchy man stops Dean before he can make it to the landing. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you here before. Sanctuary is that way, young man.”  
  
“Actually, just came from there. I was gonna, uh, just check on something…”  
  
“Don’t think so, kid. Move it along.”  
  
Dean clenches his jaw and decides to loiter in the back near the sound booth until the guard dog of a man pulls the stick outta his ass and moves away. Dean didn’t come this far to be stopped by some self-righteous prick. If there weren't so many people around he'd just force his way past…

Not soon enough the final stragglers, including Paunchy, stop yapping and head into the sanctuary when the upbeat music signals worship is about to begin.

Dean casually walks over to the stairs and takes them down two at a time with no one there to stop him this time.

He flicks on the lights in the hall and in each room he passes, no statue in sight. At the end of the corridor is a set of double doors that open up to the large reception room.

Dean swings the doors in and makes way to the side where a large statue sits. The feminine-looking angel with flowing hair is not Cas.

He is so frustrated he could scream, or punch something. He jerks his phone out of his pocket instead, dialing his brother, pacing in the empty room.

“Sam, tell me ya got somethin’.”

“No, not yet, but--”

“We need to make this easier, quicker. I have checked over a hundred places by now,” Dean says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Well, I'm glad you called. I've set up a program that will search for a specific algorithm,” Sam says, going into lengthy detail. “It should hopefully narrow our search. By a lot.”

“All I heard was you could narrow the search. Good, that's friggin’ fantastic,” Dean says tiredly. “I gotta get food in me and sleep. Text me my next target after your computer does it's voodoo.”

“‘Course, Dean. So, uh,” Sam starts and Dean knows what is coming. “Haven't seen ya in awhile. How're you holding up?”

Dean blows out a breath of air. “Look, I'm exhausted. Can we do this later? Or never?”

“Alright, alright. Waving the white flag here. Wouldn't be right if I didn't try.”

“Yeah, yeah. Talk to you tomorrow,” Dean promises and he hangs up.

He spends a lonely, uneventful night in a cheap motel room with some takeout and crappy television. After a fitful sleep he wakes to find Sam has texted him the coordinates of his next church.

Dean heads there immediately and finds it is a crapshoot, as are the next five.

After the seventh one Dean is certain he'll need to find something to shoot before he carries on.

He walks into a large chapel, already expecting a statue but something more cherubic or girly, too small or too large.

But when he walks into the high-ceilinged sanctuary Dean knows he’s in the right place the moment his eyes fall on a stern face, frozen in anger, a plumage of feathers fanned up and out behind Castiel.

“Cas,” Dean says aloud, immediately coming to stand before the large, rectangular pedestal he has been placed upon. He reaches out a hand and touches the hard, cold stone of his knee.  
  
Cas looks exactly like he would normally look if animated, aside from the wings. Even the pants look like wrinkled fabric. His flesh, and everything touching him, petrified because he looked into Medusa’s eyes.  
  
“Young man, do not touch the statue, please,” a shaky, old voice calls out.  
  
Dean forces himself to take three slow, deep breaths to calm himself as the man shuffles his way up to him, turning around to find that the voice belongs to an old priest. Dean doesn’t have time for this. He finally found Cas and now he has to deal with a curmudgeon who thinks he has a right to own Cas. Well, he’s in a for a rude awakening.  
  
“Hey, Father, I’m Dean and this statue here is my buddy, Cas. I just need a few minutes to do a little spellwork to turn him from stone and back into flesh, capice?”  
  
The priest looks at Dean like he’s sprouted two heads and he sputters a little before his confusion turns into amusement and then laughter. “Oh, that’s a good one, son.”  
  
“I’m not kidding,” Dean says, clearly at the end of his rope and ready to hang anyone with it who gets in the way. In not so many words, he tells the priest just that. “I need you to either help, or sit down and stay outta the way.”  
  
The priest’s smile dies and he turns on arthritic legs to saunter down the aisle between the rows of pews in a weak effort to get out and go call someone for help from the crazy flanneled guy with the gun in his waistband and a bunch of satanic-looking crap in a backpack.  
  
“Now, now, just sit down here, Father,” Dean says, clamping a hand on the priest’s shoulder and showing off his M1911. Keeping the gun on the man Dean wrestles some rope out of his bag. “I’m gonna just do my thing and then we’ll be outta your hair.”  
  
After the wide-eyed priest is tied to a pew, and thankfully silent in his captivity, Dean works quickly. He pulls a chalice from his bag and a ziploc bag full of the spell ingredients. One of the first things they did when they learned Cas was turned to stone was look up a reversal spell.  
  
Dean quickly and quietly mixes everything.  
  
“You do not need to do this,” the priest says as Dean pulls out a notebook with the incantation carefully written out. “May God have mercy... There is a better way.”  
  
Laughing, Dean faces him. “You have no idea what is going on here.” He lifts the chalice up, sets it on the pedestal and begins incanting. Once he is done with that he slices open his palm, smirking when he hears a small gasp from the priest behind him.  
  
As the blood drips into the chalice the church windows begin to rattle, the curtains shimmying, the spell working its magic to transform Cas back into his flesh form.  
  
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Dean mumbles impatiently, eyes trained on the statue as it starts to shine, the brightness growing stronger and hotter. He squints at it, his skin vibrating from the power, until a final burst of light flashes and temporarily blinds him.  
  
Dean rubs at his eyes and can hear the priest behind him breathing hard and whimpering. But the most amazing sound, music to his fucking ears, is the gravelly, “Dean?” coming from somewhere above him.  
  
“Cas?” Dean asks, raising up a hand and trying to see through the shadowy blur of his eyesight. A hand clasps his and Dean pulls with the intention of bringing Cas down for an embrace but instead he knocks Cas off balance.  
  
Dean bears the weight of Cas across his shoulders as their faces knock together. It’s a complete fumble of awkwardness as Dean finds himself gripping at Cas and blinking rapidly, turning his face until their noses bump and their lips meet. Both of them freeze at the contact.  
  
Cas pulls back first and the dark splotches in Dean’s eyes clear until he can make out the features of the angel before him, black wings still visible for the most part on this spectrum but slowly fading out.  
  
“S-sorry, Cas, didn’t mean to, ya know…” Dean doesn’t mean the apology one bit and licks his lips, wishing Cas had at least reciprocated or pushed for more, given Dean something to work with. Now it’s gonna be weird and awkward and he’ll be left completely unsatisfied with this joke of a ‘kiss’ that wasn't even supposed to have happened just now.  
  
Not that Dean hasn't ever entertained the idea because he is definitely aware of his feelings and his fantasies and all the things that wrap up into the perfect little package named 'Cas'. But it’s obvious Cas doesn’t want it. Well, at least now Dean knows, even if it was a slip up, and all because he couldn’t see what the hell was going on…  
  
Cool hands cup Dean’s downcast face, blue eyes searching and finding the root of Dean’s disappointment because Cas leans in and brushes their lips together. It’s so soft, barely there, that it tickles but they come together again more persistently until Dean has to pull back to breathe.  
  
“Do you know how fucking scared I was..?” Dean whispers, wrapping his arms around Cas’ neck where he is still kneeling upon the table. Normally Dean doesn’t confess shit like this but he’s always able to tell Cas anything, not that Cas couldn’t guess.  
  
They pull back from their embrace and Dean has to kiss him again, this something newly birthed between them from his relief and Cas' gratitude, never wanting to let Cas go again. Too many fucking times they're parted.  
  
They’re kissing deeply, and maybe a little obscenely given their location, when the strangled noises of a red-faced priest interrupts them. “This is-- this is an abomination,” he gurgles, spittle flying. "Angels cannot lay with man."  
  
“I would be mindful of who you’re calling an abomination,” Cas says icily, eyes narrowing on the man as he releases Dean and hops down. His wings are hidden again and the two stand side-by-side at the altar to face the priest.  
  
Dean chimes in. “I’d do as he says. You’re not the one with a gun or the power to kill with the touch of a finger.”  
  
The priest clamps his mouth shut and Dean nods in approval. “Alright then.” Dean claps his hands and rubs them together. “Cas, let’s get this cleaned up. And, just an aside, don’t ever fucking go after a goddess, or god, on your own again.”  
  
Cas scowls and stretches, testing out his limbs. “I did not know it was Medusa… right away” Satisfied that everything is in working order Cas smiles softly and says, “Thank you, Dean.”  
  
“Yeah, well… ” Dean blushes and fumbles to pull out his phone while Cas cleans the chalice and returns the items to his bag. “Sam? I got him and we’re on our way home.”  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Please make sure you see the artwork that inspired this story.  
> https://noxsoulmate.tumblr.com/post/166370534792/sassycaslovesdean-holy-destiel-so-thats-what
> 
>  
> 
> I'm a human and there may be typos, so just ignore 'em. ;-) 
> 
> Have a great day/night, friends!
> 
> ~TheTwistedWillow~


End file.
